8 More Movie Sequels With Visual Effects Inexcusably Worse Than The Original
6. Exorcist: The Beginning
Exorcist: The Beginning is a prequel to 1973's The Exorcist, but since it came out over 30 years later, you'd expect its effects to be a lot better than the original, or at least, not terrible. But that isn't the case.
While The Exorcist is a powerhouse of practical effects and makeup work, The Beginning, for some reason, opted to use a lot more CGI. This is like when Jurassic World all-but ditched the animatronic dinosaurs that were so realistic and terrifying in Steven Spielberg's original masterpiece: why fix what isn't broken? Sure, Jurassic World's CGI isn't bad, but it's hard to deny that animatronics would've made the film's dinos a lot scarier than they were.
Exorcist: The Beginning suffers from a similar problem. There are CG shots of possessed characters scuttling across walls that probably sounded awesome on paper, but in practice, the filmmakers either didn't have the money, the skill, or the time to make them look good. The worst offender, though, is the hyena attack scene, which looks so unconvincing that even director Renny Harlin regretted including it in the film.
The creatures themselves flop and move in such weird ways, and they move so fast that it's almost like the effects team didn't add enough frames to their animations. The production actually tried to use real hyenas for this scene initially, but found them impossible to train. Maybe use dogs next time then?